“Attach revenue may also slow due to contracting consumer spending and moderating attach rates,” he said.

(Only a week before an Xbox spokesman had told me the company remained “cautiously optimistic” about sales in the year ahead. “People continue to invest in video game systems,” he said.)

Today, Nintendo, which posted record-breaking Wii sales during the holidays, said Wii sales would not match its expectations in the year ahead, cutting its full-year profit forecast by 33 percent.

The Times of London quoted an analyst as saying, “Today’s revision suggests that the roaring pace of Wii growth that we’ve seen until now may be over.”

As for Sony, until now its PlayStation 3, which is priced higher than its rivals, had seemed to be the only console susceptible to the downturn. Sales of the console had already been falling over the last several months. And today, Sony said that between October and December, unit sales of the PS3 had dropped nine percent.

Updated, 3:11 pm: A Microsoft spokesman called to clarify that when Liddell said console revenue was “likely to decline” he was referring specifically to the impact of Microsoft’s decision to cut the price of the console last fall. Therefore, I included more of Liddell’s quote above.

Here’s Liddell’s full quote from the earnings call:

The entertainment and devices division is highly dependent on consumer spending and while we feel good about the first half results, a shrinking consumer spending environment would weigh on the segment’s results in the second half. Console revenue will likely decline as a result of our earlier pricing actions. Attach revenue may also slow due to contracting consumer spending and moderating attach rates.